843. Robert Wyatt - Shleep (1997)

Track Listing

1. Heaps Of Sheeps
2. Duchess
3. Maryan
4. Was A Friend
5. Free Will And Testament
6. September The Ninth
7. Alien
8. Out Of Season
9. Sunday In Madrid
10. Blues In Bob Minor
11. Whole Point Of No Return

Review

At times albums can be so retro that they actually sound quite cutting edge. This is the case with Wyatt's Shleep. I am pretty sure that the reason for this is that it is going back to music that was never mainstream, to a kind of progressive experimentalism that is completely out of place in 1997.

Bringing Eno in to the proceedings helps to make this album pretty great, it starts out with a track which is pretty close to Eno's solo career sound but it then develops into something else. Wyatt has a kind of experimental jazz sound which really does not detract from the more poppy elements of the music.

So yeah I really liked this album, possibly because I miss listening to this kind of music, the last few years having been quite barren in what concerns this type of music. Basically I really liked this album because I miss the 70s, and this would sound pretty great any decade.

Track Highlights

1. Out Of Season
2. Blues in Bob Minor
3. Heaps of Sheeps
4. The Duchess

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Shleep is the eighth album released, in 1997, by Canterbury Scene survivor and progressive rock legend Robert Wyatt.


Free Will and Testament: